A fairytale ending was not there but Sania Mirza bows out of international tennis after achieving unprecedented success and setting a high benchmark for the next generation.

Sania and her American partner Madison Keys lost 4-6, 0-6 to the Russian pair of Vernokia Kudermetova and Liudmila Samsonova in an hour at the WTA Dubai event.

Just a month ago, Sania played her last grand slam and ended with a runner-up finish at the Australian Open with compatriot Rohan Bopanna.

Now settled in Dubai, Sania would have hoped for a dream closing at her second home but she bumped into a strong Russian pairing that cut short her stay in the final tournament of her career.

The 36-year-old Sania, who turned pro in 2003, walks out of competitive tennis with six grand slam titles, including three women’s doubles with Martina Hingis.

She won two of her three mixed doubles titles with Mahesh Bhupathi (2009 Australian Open and 2012 French Open) and the US Open trophy with Bruno Soares.

In the final match of her career, the breaks were traded at swift pace in the opening set which was locked at 4-4. From there, Kudermetova and Samsonova broke Sania and Keys one more time for a 5-4 lead, placing themselves in a position from where they could serve out the set. They did that quite comfortably, losing one point in the 10th game.

Sania and Keys were broken in the very first game of the second set and it was a oneway traffic after that as they lost 0-6.

Game & beyond

Tennis is and will always remain a significant aspect of Sania’s life but the Indian icon says that not treating the sport as the be-all and end-all gave her the freedom to unleash her aggressive game every time she stepped onto the court.

The 36-year-old conjured up wins against some of the best players of her era — then US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, Martina Hingis, Nadia Petrova, and Flavia Penneta.

“What made me that aggressive was that I did not have the fear of losing,” Sania said, ahead of the match.

“Tennis was and always will be a very important part of my life, but it is not my entire life. The worst that can happen is you can lose a match and then come back and try again. So, the fear of losing was not there.”

Written with inputs from PTI